Westfield police have made an arrest in the Tuesday morning armed robbery of a Pride station.Michael P. CollinsWESTFIELD - Springfield police Tuesday night arrested a 27-year-old Westfield man, suspected in the knifepoint robbery of an East Main street gasoline station clerk, in the parking lot of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.
The suspect, Michael P. Collins, of 174 Main St.,was charged with armed robbery, assault with a dangerous weapon and larceny over $250.
Police said the female clerk at the Pride Service station had a knife put to her throat twice during the armed robbery, which was reported shortly before 4:30 a.m. Tuesday. She was not injured.

Lt. Hipolito Nunez said that Westfield Police Officer David Racicot, watching a news account at about 4 p.m. Tuesday that featured surveillance photos of the armed robbery, realized that the man shown was Collins, a suspect in a stolen car case that he had been investigating.

The victim in that case, a Westfield woman, then identified the suspect as Collins, the man who had stolen her car in Westfield some time before the armed robbery.

Westfield police advised police in the surrounding communities to be on the lookout for the suspect and the vehicle. Springfield police arrested the suspect about 6 p.m.

Nunez praised the speedy police work that got the knife-wielding suspect off the streets. “Once he was identified he was in custody in two hours,” he said.

Police recovered a knife that appears to be the one used in the armed robbery, Nunez said. The stolen car has yet to be recovered, Nunez said.